Space Junk Entering Earth Created A Mesmerizing Light Show In The Sky

Dhir Acharya - May 25, 2020

The night sky is beautiful, sometimes it’s even better with a meteor shower or… a piece of space junk re-entering the atmosphere.

A few nights ago, a piece of a Russian rocket’s late-stage burnt up during its re-entry, creating an amazing light show for those in Australia.

The even happened after Russia had a successful launch with its Soyuz-2.1b rocket that carried an EKS 4 military satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the north of Moscow.

According to The Guardian, the fireball with its long, mesmerizing tail could be seen from various places across Australia, including Cashmore, Echuca, Kyneton, Rochester in Victoria, and even Tasmania.

Several videos recording the event was circulating on social media and got attention from many people for its beauty. You could enjoy them right here, the light show was recorded for about 20 seconds.

Astrophysicist Joanthan McDowell at the Havard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics described the re-entry of this space junk as a special case, but he was quite positive that it was a piece coming from the Russian rocket. He said:

“The Russians launched a Soyuz rocket with a Kosmos satellite on it at 07:31 GMT. The third stage of the four-stage rocket was placed in a barely-suborbital trajectory with impact just south of Tasmania. So that’s what people saw—the discarded third stage on its way to crash in the ocean. Not an uncontrolled reentry like the Chinese rocket, but a carefully targeted trajectory. Very unusual, though, that the target reentry corridor began so close to shore.”